online tutors from india to usa

online tutors from india to usa

The Impact of Online Tutoring Services from India on Student Learning in the USA

1. Introduction

The present essay is an approach to review the existing literature to critically read the development and progress of the education system in India and to evaluate and analyze the tutoring mill in India by focusing on its features, functioning, composition, and leveraging the impacts it can have on multitudinal aspects of education and learning in the contemporary context of the world economy. It will have significant empirical investigation and theoretical contributions to the pedagogical aspect in the form of suggestions and conclusions. For the purpose of this study, India becomes the parent country hosting students/clientele from the USA for education, and by virtue of seeking education from India through the mode of cross-border tutoring, the United States of America would become the client country. In this essay, we are confining India and the USA – it is like an extraction of the whole world.

Education today is not merely acquiring knowledge but working on it. The demand for academicians and professionals is growing consistently, and to cater to this growing appetite, the tutoring industry in the form of e-teaching and e-tutoring is expanding at a supersonic speed. The form of cross-border tutoring, where the tutor is Indian and the tutee is American, is as old as the Indian education system. The only difference is that it has witnessed a steep positive growth. The phenomenon, clubbed with the growing impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), economic liberalization, and the increasing level of competition in academics and industries, is becoming quite relevant.

2. The Rise of Online Tutoring Services from India

In this section, we will retrospect the growth, development, components, and niche of the online tutoring trend that originated from India. Before that, let us discuss the various types of assistance that students and participants in educational programs require and how the online tutoring industry has developed over time with technological campaigns and advancements. North India has been recognized as a “Land of the Gurukuls,” where students learned various courses from their gurus on various subjects unrelated to formal education centers. Data has already put India within the top ranks of most English-speaking citizens, which has made India the most preferred choice for bigger markets such as the USA. Moreover, the wage disparity between Indians and that between English-speaking citizens of other English-speaking countries may also be one factor behind this migration and trend for establishing and expanding businesses in India.

India is a prominent player in the global market for online tutoring now, and it has seen substantial growth in this industry in the last 20 years. Many online tutorial corporations have their headquarters in India and deliver their tutorials to students located across the globe, primarily in the USA, for specific subjects. These services rarely engage in explicit detailing of the culturally specific attributes that inform Indian-ness and its representation in these tutorials. Indian-origin residents and owners of service companies provide marketing and targeting instructions and management for the company’s tutorials in the U.S. to be successful.

3. Benefits and Challenges of Cross-Border Online Tutoring

Some of the possible detracting variables to the methodology are that students might have trouble understanding the accented English, might feel uncomfortable with a class dynamic that is the opposite of the ‘norm’ (the British often tell me that my classes are too permissive and American students tell me that my classes are not permissive enough), might have trouble communicating with the professor, or might have trouble getting to appointments that take place at a different time due to time zone difference and/or overburdened schedules and thus be less likely to take advantage of the service in the first place. A significant obstacle is that many students across the world do not understand why the standardized, Northern, dialect of American English must be learned and, instead, are learning to communicate in Business English to be able to interact with American clients. This type of work could involve shifts in the priorities, financial, social, and intellectual resources of Education First (EF).

There are tutoring services available that pair American students with tutors located in India (Lingua-Phone in Boston, for example). Students speak English and tend to be older than the EF students, and more of them are looking for help in various subjects (the EF students I spoke with were only interested in English). The interaction that occurs in these cases is between an Indian tutor and an American tutee. There is the potential there, in terms of certain advantages, to unpack the impact of the culture and/or the accent, as well as the level of English, on student learning in these situations. The advantage is that these tutors know the language inside out but are also very intercultural in their ability to work with students from different language backgrounds and places. They also happen to know what students in the United States need to be able to do.

4. Case Studies and Success Stories

Ms. Meeta, a tutor, told us that she was successful in terms of meeting kids’ specific ‘learning disabilities’, because she herself has had to learn to cope with her learning disability (dyslexia). Ms. Siddhi, whose tutoring business remained unaffected, told us about her client base and how her current 80 hours a week contained clients who were “worried about the child’s comprehension skills and lack of self-confidence.” Neena Selvakumar, a private software company employee, comes home early from work to tutor children in math and skills via AsknLearn, based in Everett. She told us that these students were getting As and Bs in their classes. Her husband added that they found some success in advertising and finding clients via Craigslist, but then had to screen them as it would otherwise be like ‘opening the floodgates’ and they can’t accommodate so many students. Priya Venkat, who works online via InstaEDU or via her company, explained that she even prepared more ‘material’ for her students via her company. She has been selling online for about two years, but the decline in hourly rate did not affect her or her tutoring hours. “Because the pay is hourly, but I’m preparing more for them. And in that sense, I feel I get a high wage rate per hour. My highest pay comes from this tutor.”

Case studies and narratives: The mother of a fourth grader told us, “I came across Premila on Craigslist from a friend who had their two children tutored by her. They suggested I contact her for my son. My son was struggling in all subjects and really lacking confidence. I noted a difference in him after just two sessions. He really wanted to go to see Ms. Premila. He began applying himself in class and things he has learned from her in one of the subjects, he is now doing so well.”

5. Recommendations for Enhancing the Efficacy of Online Tutoring Services

A greater diversity of access for online software and other ICT tools may enhance tutoring services. In our case, it restricted the type of problems and problems in the teaching methods used that could be tutored when a powerful advanced graphing calculator would have been more productive. An understanding of the U.S. outside math curriculum and use of U.S.-based problems in tutoring will also improve the service. This will provide a better understanding of the cultural appropriateness of the topics. Additionally, online calculators used in India do not display steps for solving, which are included in most SATs and US curricula. Greater oversight of the content being delivered by educational institutions or government bodies in India will help. Case studies and reports at this site suggest that regulatory and licensing strategies may be the most effective way of ensuring improved educational quality. Coordination of stakeholder involvement going forward is key. Stakeholders could include, for example, educational institutions, governments, and the tutoring service providers.

Several recommendations may be helpful for enhancing the efficacy of these tutoring services going forward. Pedagogically, tutors have to take a more active role in the conceptual understanding of their students rather than simply responding to questions and providing answers. Tutors may also assign tasks that involve the use of the learned material to build problem-solving and communication skills.